Friday, December 30, 2016

This week is a holiday week for me and I am away from the computer doing
things and stuff. I have left the monsters in charge of the blog this
week and they have decided some digital sketch were in order. The last
one is Skeptical Monster...

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

This week is a holiday week for me and I am away from the computer doing
things and stuff. I have left the monsters in charge of the blog this
week and they have decided some digital sketch were in order. The second
one is Guv'nah...

Monday, December 26, 2016

This week is a holiday week for me and I am away from the computer doing things and stuff. I have left the monsters in charge of the blog this week and they have decided some digital sketch were in order. The first one is Words of Advice...

Sunday, December 25, 2016

Happiest of holiday wishes from me to you. I hope that whichever winter
festival or celebration you participate in, that it brings you
fulfillment, happiness, and time with family and loved ones. I hope the Bounty Hunters and Bounties in your life can come together in the season...
RAWR!

Friday, December 23, 2016

Hopefully all of our cards have made their way to their intended destinations and I won't be spoiling anyone's holiday wishes. That said, I wanted to share our 2016 holiday card today on the blog. Monster Santa brings all the bad boy and girl monsters all their wishes every year. Hoping that all your wishes come true in 2017!

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

While Wednesdays on the blog are often used to share the process and steps that went into a past painting I needed a break from all that today. I decided I would share some close up images of something I am actively working on. They are close up so not to give too much of the image away and to also present a better look at some of my line work as well as my sketch that is printed on the paper. The line art for this piece is complete and I have started on the rendering. If I can carve out a block of time to actually sit and draw I should be able to get this one wrapped up soon. We shall see.

Monday, December 19, 2016

I have been seeing people online posting 2006 vs 2016 comparisons of themselves and their art and I thought I would take part in part of this fun. I have for you today a personal piece I did back in 2006 and a Magic the Gathering card that was released in 2016. 2006 vs 2016...

2006 vs 2016

I can instantly see the vast difference in these two images. All the inexperience and mistakes that I see in the 2006 image really make me cringe. Of course this may come from the fact I remember making it, I remember what when into it, and I know the artist that I was at that time. To help in the comparison I have two closeups of the images side by side...

2006 vs 2016 - Comparison closeups

I think the images speak for themselves and there is really no need for me to elaborate or dwell on them. I will say that no matter what level you are at as an artist you can grow, you can get better, and you work hard to make your dreams a reality. It may take a long time and require a lot of hard work, but it is possible.

That is all for another exciting Monday on the blog, see you back here on Wednesday! Until then...

Friday, December 16, 2016

With the release of Rogue One and our celebration of Wookiee Life Day
tomorrow, I thought I would share some of my work that I have created
for the Star Wars games. Thanks to everyone over at Fantasy Flight Games
for giving me a chance to play in the Star Wars Universe! RAWR!

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

This one is definitely a bit overdue. Today I have for you the process and steps that went into my Chewbacca painting that was created for the Winter Organized Play Kit of Imperial Assault. I first shared this piece with you last October and I painted in in March of 2015. Here is how the final painting turned out...

This was a really exciting piece for me. Not only was it the first time I got to paint Chewbacca, it was the most prominent character that I have been asked to paint, AND I was going to attempt the painting traditionally. I will never paint Luke, Han, or Leia, but I definitely can paint a Chewbacca. There was a little stress going into this piece since it was such a recognizable character and I was going to paint traditionally. In the end it all worked out, obviously. To start things off, I got to work on some thumbnails...

The piece called for a strong and powerful Chewbacca fighting some Stormtroopers. There needed to be some defeated troopers in the scene as well. As you can see thumbnail option 'C' was the winner, but there were things about all three that I liked. Looking back now, 'C' is by far the best, though I still like some of the action in 'A'. With a selected thumbnail I got to work on a finalized drawing...

There was a small tweak requested with the positioning of the bow caster after the drawing was submitted, but that was done digitally. Not even sure why it was requested or how much it actually changed the image, but I did it and it was approved. Now it was time to paint! In just eight simple steps I had myself a Chewbacca paint, not really...

While the background, stormtroopers, and bow caster were all straight forward and easy enough to paint, Chewbacca was a bit of a struggle. I am still more of a scale and skin kind guy and all that fur overwhelms me sometimes. Gotta make the masses of fur read as well as the strands and bits. Then there was the issue of getting Chewbacca's likeness right. In the end I very much like this piece and I think over all it definitely looks like Chewbacca. The second Chewbacca piece that I did for the LCG, in my opinion, looks a lot more like Chewbacca, but this one was a good first attempt. You will notice that that the shape of the head does change from the drawing and there is extra work put into the face to make sure it reads more like Chewbacca. I may have spent the same amount of time on Chewbacca's head and torso as I spent on the entire rest of the painting. Some artist would expect nothing less, but it was a little new to me at the time. As time moves on it has become more common. Here is an animated process of the painting coming together so you can better see the changes I have mentioned...

I looks like I took a image of my work space while I was working on this piece. The image was tucked in with the rest of my process images that I took while painting. This offers a glimpse of what my work space looked like back in March of 2015. Things have changed as much as they have stayed the same since then...

Work space while working on Chewbacca circa March 2015

Once again, here is the final painting as well as the final production card...

Monday, December 12, 2016

Back in August I shared with you my Star Spawn miniature that is part of the 2nd Edition release of Mansions of Madness. I also mentioned that the Star Spawn would also be included in the Arkham Horror Monsters line of prepainted miniatures. That time has come and I am happy to share with you some images of the production miniature of my Star Spawn design...

Star Spawn

Arkham Horror Monsters Miniature

Pretty cool if I do say so myself! I think that the miniature really turned out great and is extremely faithful to my design. Here again is my turnaround for the Star Spawn so that you can compare...

This was the very last design that I did for this line of miniatures. I am thankful that they finally all made it into production, even if it took one seven years. Hopefully there will be another great line of miniatures for me to work on, if not, I guess I will just have to make my own...

That is all for another exciting Monday on the blog, see you back here on Wednesday! Until then...

Friday, December 9, 2016

Today I am sharing all the ins and outs that went into making one of my first Dreamblade designs, Pick-Pick. I have never shared any of the art or design work that went into Pick-Pick, so this will be all new to everybody! Along with the Blight Rat and Genteel Husk, Pick-Pick was the third of my original assignment for Dreamblade. An assignment that went from three designs to seventeen designs extremely quickly. Before I was knee deep in Dreamblade assignments I first had to get through the initial three and those were some of the toughest designs I have ever tackled. Here is how the final approved design for the Pick-Pick turned out...

Pick-Pick was a weird one to say the least. It also went through a bit of evolution as I worked on it, very much like the Blight Rat and Genteel Husk did. I dug into my archives and found the original art order description for the Pick-Pick. Even now as I read it I can't imagine coming up with my final design...

This is a small bizarre creature with no eyes.
It has a lot of puckered marks in its skin (actually sensory organs). The
creature is round with 3 knobby legs that protrude from it. Each leg ends in a
giant spike.

All the parts are there, but how they are manifested is a bit of a leap. I thank my art director for pushing me as well as my wife for the input, second opinions, and feedback as I was working on this one. Here is how the full turnaround for this piece turned out...

Sadly there is not much in the way of actual drawings for this piece, due to the consent revisions, quick deadlines, and edits, much of the above images are digital. I was fixing things, flipping things, coping things, and cleaning things up on the computer to get the images the way they needed to be. At the time it was WAY more important to get the piece done and approved rather then having a physical piece of art. This of course has changed over the years, but this change came with increased experience, confidence, and desire to have a real world manifestation of my time and work.

I mentioned that this piece went through a lot to finally get approved. Here is a look at the many stages that the Pick-Pick went though as it zeroed in on the final design. I still don't see how I got from point A to B on this one, but glad I did. Here are versions 1 and 2...

While these may look alike they are in fact... completely alike. The first pass was rejected and I was asked to add more detail, texture, and in general make it more interesting. After doing that it was again rejected. The complexity of the pose was all wrong since Pick-Pick had a common rarity, which means they needed to be easily molded and cast. There would have also been an issue of the piece even standing up straight with all of the mass positioned on one little pointed leg. I also think this design was just not doing it for any one. While it met the requirements of the art order... it was just kind of 'meh'. I was asked to start over, come at it fresh and think outside the box. Here is what followed...

Not sure how many of these I did at a time, but I know version 5 and 6 were definitely turned in together. I think 3 and 4 were turned in separately. I think you can really see the evolution of where this was going in these four designs. Version 3 was considered to chicken bodied. Or was it turkey bodied? Version 4 shows the shift in thinking about Pick-Pick as less of an 100% organic creature and more as a weird thing that does not play by the rules. Suggestions from Dear Wife as well as bouncing ideas off of her eventually led to versions 5 and 6 and the eventual approved design for Pick-Pick. Version 5 was selected, but I was asked to move the third blade up to the top so that there would be no mold and casting issues. It was a long and strange road, but I finally made it to a finished and approved design.

The final production miniature turned out great. I feel the design with both simple and complex and the miniature captured it well. Here is a look at the production miniature...

Pick-Pick Miniature

Over the years I have taken the time to re-imagine some of my earlier work, especially with my Dreamblade concepts. This practice actually started in 2006, a mere year after I first began working on Dreamblade. In just that single year my skill sets and drawing chops had improved a great deal. When it came time to show off some of my Dreamblade work in a portfolio I already felt uncertain about sharing the drawings due to their quality. Instead of using the original art I opted to redraw them for my portfolio. I did my best to be true to the original design and art, but present it with my current drawing skills. This all might seem weird, but I felt it was necessary if I was to share some of my Dreamblade concept work. Keep in mind I did this for at most two pieces and it was for designs I felt confident in their concept, just not their execution. Here is the redraw that I did for Pick-Pick...

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Today I have for you the process and steps that went into making my Chaac painting that I first shared with you in February. Chaac was part of the Gods and Goddesses anthology produced by Michael Publishing, LLC. In the original post I talk a bit about how I first came to learn about Chaac while touring the Yucatan in 2014, today I will be focusing on the process of the painting. Here is how the final Chaac painting turned out...

Since this was more or less a personal piece that was going to be used for the anthology I had complete freedom to do what ever I wanted to do. This streamlined my process a little, but it still followed the same steps I always do. I started off everything, of course, with a thumbnail. Since I knew exactly what I wanted to do, the thumbnail was a digital sketch that I worked out a single compositions until it was how I wanted it, rather then the three or more options I would give to a client. Here is how the thumbnail turned out...

You might notice the various boxes on the image above, these are the various crop marks and bleed areas for the final image. The final art needed to be 9 x 12 with a little bleed, but I like to work at 11 x 14, so I made sure while I was working on the thumbnail that I took into account for the needs for the anthology and the my own personal needs. Now that I have everything worked out in the thumbnail it was time to create the finalized drawing...

This was a fun one to draw, but as with most things I work on these days, there was just not enough time to really linger on the drawing. I needed to get it done so I could move onto the painting. Here is the painting coming together in twelve easy steps...

Mayan Gods were described as having both animal and human characteristic. Keeping that in mind, I also wanted to pull influences from the sculptures made to represent him. I imagined a monstrous deity that was part man, part animal, and part earth or stone. I saw the sculptures in the Yucatan as more of a literal representation rather then an abstraction or iconic portrayal. Chaac is often described as having armor made of water or simply having blue armor, so I really wanted to include this element. I pulled the rest of the color and visual elements from what I witnessed in the Yucatan.

Here is an animated progression of the painting to better show the painting coming together...

About Me

I began my career designing special makeup effect for movies and television. Some of the television shows I worked on including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly.

Currently I work in the gaming industry illustrating and designing monsters. I have done work with
Wizards of the Coast, Fantasy Flight Games, Paizo Publishing, Privateer Press, and AEG (just to name a few) on various book, card and miniature gaming products.